Apple today announced their financial results for Q1 2013, the typically lucrative holiday quarter, and it includes 47.8 million iPhone, 22.9 million iPads, 12.7 million iPods, 4.1 million Macs and $54 billion in revenue. Apple's executives said:

“We’re thrilled with record revenue of over $54 billion and sales of over 75 million iOS devices in a single quarter,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We’re very confident in our product pipeline as we continue to focus on innovation and making the best products in the world.”

“We’re pleased to have generated over $23 billion in cash flow from operations during the quarter,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “We established new all-time quarterly records for iPhone and iPad sales, significantly broadened our ecosystem, and generated Apple’s highest quarterly revenue ever.”

The usual conference call is set to start in a few minutes and we'll be following along and providing you with any notes of interest below. In the meantime, did Apple's money match your market and rumor-fueled expectations?

Apple Q1 2013 conference call notes of interest

Tim Cook (TC): Really pleased. Record iPhone, iPad sales. No tech company ever reported such results. Most prolific period in history. New products in every category. Very best products in the world. Not willing to cut corners. Relentless committment to innovation and excellence. Driving force behind apple.

80,000 employees strong. Working together. Cook's job is to preserve culture. People, strategy, product pipeline, Apple Retail will serve them well in the months and years ahead.

Steve Introduced first Mac at shareholder meeting in Cupertino.

Come along way since 1984, but same spirit and drive that brought iPod, iPhone, iPad.

A lot of impressive numbers during call. Most important thing is customers love products, not just buy them, love them. Laser focused. Half a billion iOS devices. 10 per second last quarter alone.

Everyone at Apple has eyes on the future. Most talented, creative team on earth. Common purpose. Enrich lives of their customers.

47.8 million iPhones. Up 39% per week. 78% growth on sequential basis. Strong growth all segments, notably greater China where it doubled year-over-year. Estimate share increase to 51% in current quarter. Driven by iPhone 5, launched in 100 countries by end of December. Fastest ever. 10 million in channel, 4-6 weeks.

4.1 million Macs. 312K per week. Down 16%. Introduced new 13-inch Retina, stunning new iMac. As projected, significantly constrained, only able to ship in final month of Q. Believe would have been higher. 3-4 week channel inventory, below target.

12.7 million iPods. iPod touch popular, continues to account for over 50%. Share is over 70% of US market. Continues to be top seller in most countries Apple tracks.

Q: Large cash generation, constant pipeline, why not buy back more stock?

PO: Continuously assess, invest in business, return cash. Started program this corner. Combined with dividend, returned over 4 billion. 45 billion over 3 years. Will do what they think is in best interest of share holders.

Q: Differentiating with larger screen sizes. How do you think about competitive dynamics? Long term case for larger screen, larger variety?

TC: iPhone 5 offers new 4-inch Retina display. Most advanced in industry. No one comes close in quality. Doesn't sacrifice one handed ease of use. Put a lot of thinking into screen size. Picked the right one.

Q: How are you viewing iPhone trends coming out of quarter? See any meaningful deterioration?

PO: Built 2.6 billion in channel inventory, get into 4-6 quarter in inventory. Would expect sell-through growth as it has many quarters in a row.

TC: Rumors about order cuts. Not any particular rumor, would spend my life doing that. Good to question the accuracy of any rumor about any of them. Any data point factual, impossible to accurately determine what it means for overall business. Yields vary. Multiple sources. Suppliers vary. Long list. Make any single data point not a great proxy for what's going on.

Q: Change in guidance?

PO: Believe they will report within that range.

Q: Before eclipsed guidance, was it before confidence or implicit buffer? Distinction?

PO: Again, past was conservative single point, reasonable confidence. Now providing range of guidance they expect to report within.

Q: Started call talking about Apple philosophy, satisfying customers, making great products. How important is market share preservation? Is holder share in smartphone market in 2013 a priority? How do you hold share when you play in a segment that will grow slower?

TC: Most important thing is to make best product in the world to enrich people's lives. High order bit. Could put Apple brand on many things, make more money, not what they do. iPod was different price point on different products, good share. Not mutually exclusive. But high order bit is making a great product that enriches customers lives.

Q: What happened with Mac? Over 1, 1.5 billion shortfall? How much was pushed to March?

TC: If you look at previous year, Mac sales was 5.2 billion. 1.1 difference. iMac were down 700K YOY. Announced new iMac in late October, would ship 21 in November, 27 in December. Limited weeks of ramping on those products. Left with significant constraints. Sales would have been materially higher if not for those constraints. Warned about it last Q.

TC: This year was 13 as opposed to 14 quarters. Channel inventory was down by over 100K units. iMac was in constraints. These 3 factors bridge more than the difference between this year and last year. Also, market for PCs is weak, estimates -6%. Sold 23 million iPads, could have sold more, couldn't build enough iPad minis to come into demand balance. Some cannibalization there.

Q: Product mix?

PO: Hard to tell with iPad mini, constrained every week. Couldn't make enough.

TC: iPhone ASP was essentially the same YOY. iPhone 5 to total iPhone vs. iPhone 4S to total iPhone is similar, size mix similar.

Q: CapEx, almost vertically integrated. How deep will you go?

PO: Expect to spend about $10 billion this fiscal year, up almost 2 billion. Under a billion on retail, other 9 in a variety of areas, buying equipment to put in partner facilities. Benefits supply, other things. Putting money in data centers. Facilities, infrastructure.

Q: Refresh cycle last year, 80% in last 3 months. This year will you stagger or similar to 2012?

TC: 80% was unusually high for Apple. Number of ramps were unprecedented. New products in every category. Feel great to have delivered so many products for holidays. Customers joyed.

TC: Total greater China, revenues were 7.3 billion. Incredibly high. Up over 60% YOY, 13 to 14 weeks, underlying higher. Exceptional growth in iPhones, triple digits. Shipped iPad very late, saw very nice growth. Expanding Apple retail. 11 compared to 6 stores. Many more to open. Premium resellers now over 400, up from over 200. Increased iPhone POS from 7K to over 17K. Not nearly what they need or final, not even close. Making great progress.

TC: Already second largest region. Lot of potential there.

Q: Apple Television?

TC: Sold more Apple TVs than ever before. Eclipsing 2 million. Up 60% YOY. Good growth. What was small niche is a much larger number that love it. Area of intense interest. Remains that. Believes there's a lot Apple can contribute. Continues to pull string.

Q: Data on how iPhone sales proceeded new customers vs. upgrades, compared to 4S last year.

TC: Don't have specifics in front of them. Obvious based on numbers, a lot of new customers.

Q: Not upgrade cycle?

TC: Caution against using rumors as a proxy for the world.

Q: How to think about iPad next quarter? Seasonality? Aggregate inventory?

TC: iPad mini was very constrained. Ended with under target channel rank. Believe they can achieve balance later this quarter. Would need more units would be a fair conclusion.

TC: Great job ramping so many products. iPad mini, both models of iMac constrained. Still short on both. iPhone 5 was short to demand until late in the quarter, iPhone 4 short throughout quarter. iPhone 4 should reach balance this quarter. iMac significantly increase supply but demand very strong, not certain they'll reach balance.

TC: Sees cannibalization as huge opportunity. Never fear it or someone else will do it. Know iPhone has done it to iPod, iPad to Mac, doesn't worry Apple. Mother of all opportunities. Windows market much larger than Mac market. Clear iPad is already cannibalizing some. Tremendous opportunity there. Believes tablet market will be bigger than PC at some point still. For Apple, if someone will but iPad, iPad mini as first Apple product, great experience knowing when someone buys Apple, they buy another Apple product. Halo effect. iPod with Mac. Confident, seeing evidence that will happen with iPad as well.

TC: Thing to consider, year ago quarter built 2.6 million in channel inventory. Did China launch a quarter later last year. In thinking through iPhone predictions, looked at 32.5 number as baseline. Will grow YOY but don't want to be more specific. Guide in aggregate.

PO: Not talking about guidance at product level, but thought about 5-10% YOY impact. A few factors. Last year built iPhone sell-in created revenue, thinking in sell-through basis. iPhone 5 rollout fastest ever. Last year did not achieve country distribution until march, including January in China. Introduced iPad mini, kept iPad 2 in line. Reduction in iPad ASP of $101 YOY. iPad units grew faster than revenue. iPad ASPs expected to be down March quarter for same reason. PC grew 4% last year, this year predicted decline of 3%. Remain confident in business and pipeline.

Q: iPhone cannibalization. Why not get more aggressive and move down market?

TC: Feels great about opportunity of getting products to customers. Percentage buying other Apple products. Historic and evidence today.

You guys need to be realistic. AAPL is selling in many...many more places than two years ago so all things being equal sales are flat to down a little. Good company, but they are falling behind. If they are the company we want them to be they need to step up their game.

I have 2 iPads and a iPod the phone is not for me. Also I did own the stock for a while, but sold it around the $670.

IMOP the stock needs to go down to about $380 - $411 if nothing changes over the next 3 months and I'm not talking about a iPhone 5s with a better camera.

?? They posted a record quarter for iPhone and iPads. Sure the Mac and iPod are heading towards the garbage dump, but there is no future in those products (certainly no $$). Apple is firing on all cylinders when it comes to hardware, they just need to get with it on software and services (as Rene wrote about).

If a company’s stock suffers a setback for temporary reasons but its business model remains strong and its competitive advantages remain intact, we can consider it a (temporarily) broken stock and it usually makes for a good investment opportunity. However, if the causes for the stock’s decline can be found in a flawed business model, the loss of its competitive advantage, an overall shift in the company’s industry, or any other serious, long-term adverse effects, then we can generally refer to it as a broken company.

none of this is true for apple. What flawed businessmodel? They're selling stuff faster than they can make it. What loss of competetive advantage? Nothing out there is even close to, let alone on par with what apple delivers. No serious long-term adverse effects in sight. Instead some upcoming blockbuster products in the pipeline (retina iPad mini, iPad 5 with new formfactor, Haswell Macbooks/iMacs) and growing demand for their stuff and services! And for god's sake: China?!
Even thinking about using the term "broken" in this context is ridiculous.

Well if that's what you think who am I to say you're wrong.
What I can say is the vast majority of investors disagree with you at the moment.

By the way one huge business flaw Apple has IMOP is sticking with that lame 4 inch screen and making statements on conference calls that they don't care about making profits just making the best products they can. If they believe that then they need to be a private company.

What's worrying investors is that even though Apple has recorded record sales for the quarter they barely made more in profits over the same quarter last year. Somewhere around 400 million with much higher sales. It means margins are down but that can be atributed to high manufacturing costs and the release of 5 new product designs this year. Apple is fine even though their stock is going down at the moment. Once manufacturing costs level themselves out and margins are improved it'll start it's way up again. It's going to coinue to decline at the moment but I not think its a bad buy when it hits low 400's.

Keep in mind that Q1 of 2012 was 14 weeks, while Q1 of 2013 is 13 weeks. If you adjust for that, then Apple did indeed make more profits than last quarter. By how much, I do not know. But the math should be doable.